Move over Tupperware, here comes the Taser party
By Rick Badie | Monday, March 31, 2008, 06:02 PM
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
He bought his wife a Taser shortly after Meredith Emerson was snatched out of the woods and killed.
Firearms, Tim McCoy told me Saturday, are not allowed in national forests. Tasers are.
We’re talking in the kitchen of the Lawrenceville home he shares
with Leigh, his wife of 12 years. They had invited me to a party, one
with an unusual theme. A Taser party. Think Tupperware party but with
Tasers in designer colors like electric blue, black pearl and titanium
silver.
It was quite the bash, though no one got liquored up. (Booze wasn’t
served, a wise move when you’re hawking stun gun devices. During the
party, McCoy let his wife shoot him for demonstration’s sake. More on
that later.)
The McCoys decided to become authorized Taser dealers after they
purchased two of the devices. They were granted dealership status in
February after going through the approval process with Taser
International, the manufacturer.
Their business, “Packing Jolt,” was born. Their slogan: “Speak Softly and Carry a Big Shock.”
Civilian tasers and police tasers vary. Shock from the police device
lasts four seconds. The blast from the civilian one lasts 30 seconds.
That way, the shooter has time to escape to safety. If the shooter
presses the “trigger” again, he’ll release another 30-second cycle of
electricity. If there’s more than one predator, the others will
probably scat after they see their comrade paralyzed, according to the
video shown Saturday. The taser also has stun-gun capability in case of
more than one attacker.
The civilian taser has a 15-foot coil with two barbed probes on the
end. The probes hook to the attackers’s clothes, or the skin. So in
addition to being blasted with 50,000 volts, an attacker might get
hooked like a fish.
“Not as messy as a .357,” quipped Alan Oberlander of Stockbridge. He
attended the party with his wife, Vivian, and two kids - Kristle, 19,
and Joe, 15.
Oberlander struck me as a no-nonsense guy. You know the type: Deep
love for the USA and the right to keep and bear firearms. He bought two
Tasers - one for his wife and one for his daughter.
“Just think if those two girls would have had a Taser,” he said,
referring to the University of North Carolina and Auburn University
co-eds who were recently murdered. :This is better for women who may
not feel comfortable carrying guns. But believe me, we got those, too.”
No doubt, Tasers are valuable to civilians and cops. They just need to be deployed wisely.
In May 2004, a Lawrenceville man died in the Gwinnett jail after the
authorities shocked him five times. I wrote that local law enforcement
agencies should hold off using the devices until research could
determine whether they contributed to this man’s death and others in
Georgia. A medical examiner’s report concluded the chest shocks didn’t
kill him. A heart attack did.
Apparently, Taser International understands the need to draw a line
between the infliction of punishment and forced submission. In June
2005, the manufacturer released an advisory warning to law enforcement,
saying that repeated and prolonged strikes from its stun gun device may
impair breathing and lead to death.
I almost died Saturday after seeing McCoy take a five-second burst.
To prepare, he put on an insulated vest and positioned himself so that
he’d be struck in the back.
Oberlander did the countdown. “5,4,3,2,1!”
McCoy’s wife pulled the trigger. Zap.
McCoy didn’t drop to his knees, but he buckled a little. Everybody
asked the private investigator and AT&T construction lineman if he
were OK.
“Pull the probe out!” he yelled. That took a while, but Oberlander finally got it out his back.
Then, I asked the one question everybody wanted to know:
“How did it feel?”
His answer is unprintable. Suffice it to say that McCoy likened the
shock to an engine firing up while a spark plug is stuck up a certain
part of one’s body.
The basic civilian Taser costs $299; the laser-sighted model sells
for $350. Packing Jolt gives Gwinnett residents a break. They get $40
worth of free accessories (holster and T-shirt) as well as free
shipping and delivery. The couple has sold 11 devices so far, including
the two Oberlander bought Saturday.
The McCoys feel strongly that Tasers are going to change personal
safety, much the way air bags enforced automobile safety. The
predator’s job, they say, just got harder.
For more information, visit packingjolt.com or call 678-427-7530.
Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact
him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail: rbadie@ajc.com.
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